


How Long Has This Been Going On?

by Black_Hole_of_Procrastination



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, F/M, Funny Face AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-17 23:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14199555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination/pseuds/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination
Summary: When Jon agreed to keep an eye on Robb's little sister when she moved to New York, he didn't expect to fall in love.(Funny Face AU. Reluctant model/philosopher Jon falls for burgeoning fashion photographer Sansa).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AliceInNeverNeverLand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceInNeverNeverLand/gifts).



“I’m so sorry, Jon.”

Sansa glances at him, a chagrinned sort of smile twisting her lips. Her camera equipment lies forgotten on a low table near the front of the shop, set aside as she begins to scoop up armfuls of the books that are scattered on the floor.

“Margaery got it into her head that a drab setting might suit the collection. Something about contrasts. I didn’t think she’d make such pig of herself or else I’d never have suggested we shoot here.”

Jon is not sure whether to be offended or amused by the insult held in Sansa’s words.

He doubts Professor Aemon would bat an eye at hearing his beloved bookshop described as ‘drab’, he was above such material nonsense, but Jon’s feathers are still a little ruffled at being ousted from the shop, and by a _fashion_ magazine no less.

“It’s fine, Sansa,” he nudges his glasses up his nose, surveying the damage with a sinking heart. There are more books on the floor or stacked carelessly on tables than there are on the shelves. It’ll take him hours to put them all back, and Sam won’t be by until later for the evening shift. “Here. I can manage.”

He holds out an expectant hand for the books in Sansa’s arms, but she ignores it, shimmying past him.

“Oh no, Jon! It’s my fault your shop is like this. Let me help! It’s the least I can do.”

Jon wants to refuse, to get her and every last trace of _Quality_ magazine out of the shop for good, but she is already climbing one of the ladders to reach some of the higher shelves.

Jon sighs.

He suspects he’ll have to go back through and reshelve most of the books Sansa is intently stacking together, but he is too tired to fight her on it. If she has anything of Robb’s stubbornness in her, he knows it’ll be a losing battle anyway.

Jon grabs a stack of books and climbs a ladder near Sansa’s to begin restocking.

This isn’t exactly what he had in mind when he promised Robb he’d keep an eye on Sansa when she moved to New York (a promise extracted after one too many whiskies and some fond reminiscing over their boarding school days).

It is a duty that has required very little of Jon up until now. He’s seen neither hide nor hair of Sansa since she landed her gig at _Quality_. Existing in mutual ignorance of each other while living in the same city seems to suit them fine. After all, they’ve never been close and Jon knows his crowd isn’t really ‘Sansa’s scene’. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised to hear that she never bothered to go south of 34th St!

But now Sansa is here, in _his_ shop, and Jon feels like he’s somehow let Robb down by keeping his distance.

Jon is pulled from his thoughts when Sansa lets out a low whistle.

“Boy does this one sound grim,“ she muses, thumbing through a thick philosophy text. Jon recognizes the cover. It’s one of Dr. Melisandre’s.

He scowls at Sansa’s rough handling of the book and plucks it from her fingers, carefully setting it in a pile to be reshelved in its proper place.

“It’s on empathicalism,” he says. Sansa quirks an eyebrow, and so he elaborates. “It’s based on empathy.”

"Empathy,” Sansa repeats lightly. She is already back to shelving books. “Is it something like sympathy?”

Jon shakes his head.

“Oh, it goes beyond sympathy,” he insists. Sansa is watching him intently now. She actually appears to be listening, so he continues. “Sympathy is to _understand_ what someone feels. Empathy is to project your imagination so, that you actually _feel_ what the other person is feeling. You put yourself in the other person’s place.”

Sansa is quiet, her brow furrowed as she considers his explanation.

A bit of her hair has come loose and hangs in a fiery wisp alongside her face. The rest is sensibly pulled back, and a colorful scarf is tied around her head.

Jon smirks as he takes in what Sansa deems as ‘work’ clothing. Admittedly, the bright colored pedal pushers and sweater are much more casual than anything he remembers her flouncing about in when he spent his holidays at Winterfell, but he’d wager a guess that the scarf alone costs more than everything in his closet put together.

Jon opens his mouth to tease her about it when suddenly Sansa is reaching over, pulling her ladder along the attached track and wheels until it is right alongside Jon’s ladder.

Without further fanfare, Sansa tilts up onto her toes and presses her lips against his.

It’s a brief kiss, and before Jon can unfog his mind enough to decide whether he wants to pull away or kiss her back, it’s over.

“Why did you do that?” Jon asks, bewildered.

Sansa gives a light, nervous laugh. She is already focused back on shelving books, by all appearances unaffected by their kiss (save for the slight blush creeping down her neck).

“Empathy,” she shrugs, as if that were the obvious explanation for abruptly kissing her older brother’s former schoolmate. “I put myself in your place and I felt you wanted to be kissed.”

There's a teasing note in her voice, but also something else. A sort of challenge that sends Jon’s stomach into knots.

_Is she flirting with me?_

It seems ridiculous. As ridiculous as Sansa Stark taking fashion photos in some musty bookshop in the Village.

And yet here she is, smiling at him shyly, looking too pretty to be real.

It’s been ages since Jon’s kissed anyone. Not since Ygritte. And even then, he’d never been what anyone could call ‘smooth’ when it came to women.

Still, he likes to think he would have said something clever back. That he would have made Sansa smile. That he would have kissed her, _really_ kissed her the second time round. There are quite a few things Jon would have done, were it not for one thing…

_Robb._

“I’m afraid you put yourself in the wrong place,” Jon says, not willing to look at Sansa.

She gives another one of those nervous laughs, but otherwise seems to shrug off his rejection easily. This surprises Jon. He didn’t think girls like Sansa were used to hearing ‘no’.

She lingers a little while longer, flitting from one stack of books to the next without really putting anything away, before she makes her excuses and ducks out of the shop.

Jon knows the gentlemanly thing to do is to follow her out and help flag down a cab, but he stays where he is, certain that he would only muck things up more if he followed her outside.

He moves down the rungs of the ladder on heavy feet and looks around. The mess seems even more depressing than it was before.

Out of the corner of his eye he spots a flash of color. It’s a hat. Jon recognizes it as the one the model from _Quality_ had been wearing earlier.

He picks it up, turning it delicately in his hands.

_It looks out of place here_ , Jon muses, considering it. _Just as Sansa did_.

It’s for that reason, if nothing else, Jon knows he did the right thing in stopping whatever it was Sansa was trying to start.

_Then why do I feel lousy about it?_


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey!” Sansa squawks, as the door flies open. A flash of light leaks in from the outside before the door slams shut again. Sansa scowls. She’s elbows deep in developing the film for the September issue and can’t afford to waste time making reprints. “Didn’t you see the light on outside?” 

Margaery has her girls trained better than this. They know not to come in here when Sansa is working. But as Sansa squints across the red glow of the darkroom she realizes it’s not one of Margaery’s scatterbrained assistants or editors standing in the doorway but someone else entirely.

“Oh Jon,” she smiles. “It’s you.”

Jon startles at her voice. His back is to the door, his eyes blown wide with panic. 

It takes a moment, but Jon catches his bearings. He casts a quick look around the darkroom, and sheepishly ducks his head when he notices the row of photographs drying on the line.

“I’m sorry if I spoiled your print.”

“That’s alright.”

“Do you…” Jon pauses. He’s still breathing a little heavily. “Do you mind if I stay here a while?”

Sansa shrugs.

“Sure.”   

She watches him from the corner of her eye as she continues working. He’s a mess. His shirt is half untucked, a few of the top buttons undone, and there is a spot just above his ear where it looks as though someone has attempted to trim his hair.

“Are you ok?”

Jon goes quiet for a long while, so long that Sansa thinks he doesn’t mean to answer her at all, when suddenly he meets her eye and confesses, "I’m hiding. From  _her_.”

The contempt in Jon’s voice can only mean one thing.

“Margaery?” Sansa asks, the pieces falling together. She fights to keep her face impassive.“Yes, she’s been known to have that effect. What’s she done now?”  

Jon goes quiet again, glaring miserably at the floor, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. 

“That bad?” she teases.

Sansa doesn’t need Jon to explain. Margaery had told Sansa all about her scheme to lure Jon to  _Quality’_ s offices under the guise of having books delivered for Willas. 

"They were pulling at my clothes and trying to cut my hair,” Jon grumbles. “Some joke about putting me in the magazine.”

Sansa wants to laugh. Jon is wearing the same horrified expression he’d had on his face when Margaery stormed into that hovel where he works armed with models, several pieces of couture, and a camera. 

A sudden series of frantic knocks rattle the door.

“Sansa? Have you seen that guy from the bookshop? Is he in there?”

It’s Elinor. Margaery’s assistant. 

Jon shakes his head, his eyes desperate and pleading.

“No” Sansa lies. “There’s no one in here but me.”

“Well if you see him, hold onto him!”

Sansa grins at Jon, who is already sinking against the door in relief.

“Oh trust me, I will.”

They both listen as the brisk clip of Elinor’s heels fades farther and farther away.

“Thanks,” Jon says, watching as Sansa resumes her work.  

“Don’t thank me yet,” Sansa warns over her shoulder. She pulls a print out of the solution and moves to hang it. “You see, it’s not a joke. I thought you’d make a good model.”

“This is  _your_  idea?" Jon blinks owlishly at her, looking one part dumbfounded, the other part betrayed.

"Yeah,” Sansa grins. “I’m the one you sue.”

Jon gives a short sort of hysterical laugh.

“It’s ridiculous! I can’t be a model!”

"Why not?”

“Well…my face. Isn’t it too funny looking for that?”

“That’s what Margaery said at first.”

The look of outright offense that clouds Jon’s expression is so comical that Sansa has to bite her lip to keep from chuckling. 

Of all Robb’s school friends, she’s never pegged Jon as particularly vain (that was more Theon’s territory). 

Still, she’s made a living out of observing, and from what she’s seen of Jon she cannot deny there is something purposeful in his rumpled appearance. A definite effort put into seeming not to care. Hell, she wouldn’t be at all surprised if she were to learn that Jon agonized over those curls in the mirror every morning until they looked perfectly untidy. 

“Cheer up!” she teases brightly. “Your face is only funny when you scowl like that. And anyway, I think it’s interesting.”

This doesn’t seem to be the assurance Jon is looking for. 

_He’d rather I had said his face is handsome,_ Sansa smirks, amused to see her brother’s ever serious friend so put out over it. 

It’s not that Jon’s  _not_  handsome. He is. Maybe not in a Rock Hudson or William Holden sort of way. Their attractiveness is all veneer.  _Like Joff._ No, there’s something more honest about Jon’s face. Something real, that you can’t help but  _like_. 

_Little wonder Margaery’s so desperate to nab him for the shoot._

“Sansa,” Jon shifts on his feet, uncomfortable. “If this some joke to get back at me for the other day…”

“It’s not,” she cuts in. “I wouldn’t suggest taking you to Paris with us if I was joking.”

“Paris?”

“Yeah.” It’s a last ditch effort, but Sansa figures it can’t hurt to try. “Look at this way, modeling may not be as bad as you think. And if it is, at least you’ll be in Paris. You can sit in cafes, and drink tiny coffees, and talk all about emphawhatsits until your blue in the face.”

“Emphaticalism,” Jon corrects, a faraway look on his face.

“Sure. That way it wouldn’t be a total loss,” Sansa tries for nonchalance while making this final argument, and though Jon doesn’t respond, she can tell he’s considering what she’s said. 

“I’ll tell you what,” she begins to offer, wiping off her hands after hanging the last of her prints. “I’m going to go distract Margaery and her minions while you make a run for it.”

Sansa doesn’t wait for Jon to answer. She quickly gathers up her things before placing a brief kiss to his cheek on her way out the door.

Sansa can’t help but wonder what it might be like to _really_  kiss him someday. Not impulsively, surrounded by dusty books, or a polite sisterly peck on the cheek. Something sweet and slow and lingering. She suspects under all of Jon’s blushing, professorial demeanor he might be rather good at it. 

“Jon?” she pauses in the doorway until she is certain she has his attention. “Think it over, will you?”


End file.
